Grand Indonesia (Five Years Later)

Bags x-rayed and the body scanner. The day before the Workers Party, a lad had called them after some head scratching, passed through the road dividing the East and West towers. It was unlikely that any of those chaps had ever gained admittance to these polished halls. A Gojek man in his livery coming up to Cafe Journal's counter to collect his order was about as close as that sector would get. The service class could not be debarred entirely of course, cleaners, dishwashers and attendants. A young Arab pair with a local lass reverted to their own language for their jokes and hijinks that culminated in their version of hi-fives. The page 4 NYTimes photo of a burned out car on an Iraqi street they had grown up with in their region. (Kinokuniya in the basement had discontinued their subscription of the Jak Post; Gramedia might be tried in the East Mall, the girl had suggested.) Like a party trick, on page 1 Ariel Dorfman recalled once more the killing of Pablo Neruda. How many times had Dorfman rehearsed that tale for the Western media? The threat posed by North Korea had returned to the table the limited nuclear strike option. (Saddam must have given the earlier provocation.) Another example of resistance to the Trump agenda was the tale of migrant success in America. The journalist disliked the “melting pot” metaphor and another equally unsatisfactory; a third of his own was presented as more appropriate. After the successes of the Greeks and their diners, the Chinese laundries and Viet nail salons, one of the new rags to riches stories was the Burmese sushi ventures. Not Korean or Japanese this new brand in the supermarkets—Burmese/Myanmar. (While it was recalled: the famous Gudang Garam clove cigarettes here was itself an odd example of branding—house or building of salt literally, according to Ni; spice or relish presumably the point.) More resistance to the new tabloid President supposed the furor that would have resulted had a black incumbent fathered five children to three women, attacked a grieving combat widow and exploited the office for personal gain. Circling past Thambrin City en route to the mall a man mounting the steps of a mosque again recalled something from Ni. The night before she had delayed the outing for supper until after maghrib. In her family, if not the kampung as a whole out near Magalengka, the evening meal needed to wait on maghrib. Even without prayers after the calls one ought to perform the ablutions, Ni recalled her father's teaching; that cleansing itself was beneficial. Seeing the tall man crowned with his songkok, white shirt and darkly patterned wrap, the picture of cleanliness and the deportment in the approach to the devotions recalled the wisdom of the father teaching the daughter. For the great unwashed of the kampungs, the rice paddies and vegetable gardens, the ablutions and prayers were a reminder of better selves, of true, inner spirit.